Interpreting Invisible Cities with Illustrations
Part 2: Maurilia, Fedora, Zoe, Zenobia, Euphemia, Zobeide, Hypatia, Armilla, Chloe and Valdrada
In the second part of the book, we get introduced to Maurilia, a postcard city. Here the recurrent discussion of change, and perception of change is metaphorized through an old and new Maurilia, in fact, multiple cities with the same name, same inhabitants but different spatial & physical attributes. The postcard city of Maurilia documents the bygone times, which is now savoured as graceful memories, but which projected no grace when it existed even to her own inhabitants; but today, the inhabitants with the same names, accents and facial features reminisce the postcard city with great appreciation and nostalgia. Is this metaphorical to the fact that we tend to value things once we lose them, and frame that memory through gateways of extravagant imagery (postcards), a 3x5 corroboration of a view of “our memory”; but is it truly representative of the intangible that goes beyond and within (reference of gods in original text), making it a city it was then?
Is it that we consciously chose to pick a picture-perfect memory and set it as a benchmark, to compare the future possibilities which may emerge beyond the comprehensible exegesis of the benchmark itself? Do we still stick to the same yardstick of static city names, peoples’ names and their faces across space and time, unaware of the bare truth that there’s no connection whatsoever between these cities — old and new, but simply a magnificent past that we want to remember in a calibrated dosage, so as to not be regretful of our present and future possibilities.
Fedora, another city of desire, has a metal building with crystal orbs — the museum. Each orb contains an imaginary Fedora that could have been a possibility — a Fedora that could have been the reality of someone’s aspirations, virtues, power, persona, envy or freedom. Every Fedora in the orb was an ideal city for every inhabitant who visited the museum at every age — only to realise by the time they built their miniature city was only a desire.
The orbs and the connection of a Fedora described as the gray stone metropolis with high canopies and twisting, spiralling minaret, is like a seed that could germinate in infinite places and live an infinite number of lives. Every life lived then could be somebody’s ideal desire, but only notional.
Zoe, grouped under cities and signs is counterintuitively devoid of any signs. Zoe is the antithesis of the expectations of a traveller, trying to map and track princes’ palaces, high priests’ temples, the prison and the slum. The author touches upon the notion that cities are signs of what makes them different from each other — a city of lakes, a city of gardens, a city of mountains, a city of flowers and so on. But Zoe is nothing like that.
A traveller in Zoe can keep mapping and tracking the city, but all he ends up with are doubts. Everything fades into a subtotal of indistinguishable features. Then, what does Zoe signify? Zoe is the precipitation of randomness and the accompanying sense of curiosity — a place of indivisible existence — an obscure construct of the inside and outside of continuance.
This thought that cities are becoming figure less and form less — unassuming in their character and uniqueness — is the product of modern day planning and design. Our cities are losing their richness and diversity.
Zenobia sits on high pilings bamboo houses with platforms and balconies — linked by ladders and hanging sidewalks and cone-roofed structures. The sight is exotic — perhaps a vision of Zenobia’s early residents. Though if today a Zenobian is asked about their idea of a perfect city, they’d draw from what exists today — pilings, stairways and connecting ladders — and add what they wished for.
Zenobia’s mutations have reached a point where desires have formed the city. But has it surpassed the threshold where desired mutations are so extensive that the original idea is lost. How often does unchecked desire lead to subsuming the outcome instead of shaping it.
Euphemia, Greek for well spoken, is the city traders from seven nations cross rivers and deserts to visit at every solstice and equinox to exchange spices, nuts, silk, cotton, wares and so on. But what makes these traders make all the effort when they could get the same bargain anywhere across the Kingdom? It is to trade “memories”.
By nightfall, the traders gather by the fires all around the bazaar, and for every word said — wolf, sister, hidden treasure, battle and lovers — every man tells his own story about wolf, sister, hidden treasure, battle and lovers. And as the traders take on their separate paths the next morning, every man summons and intertwines his own story with the dozens of stories from the bazaar, keeping company to their rather companionless journeys.
Marco Polo used objects from each city and animated expressions to narrate the cities, as he didn’t speak the language of the Emperor. Having heard about 15 cities so far, Kublai Khan now started interpreting the possible meanings of the vivid things Marco Polo exhibited. Did the quiver of arrows signify war, or the sport (archery) or an armourer’s workshop? The great Khan was more excited about Marco Polo’s inarticulate narrations that left a void — a plain canvas — for him to imagine the city, relive the city and internalize the city’s offerings.
But with time, when Marco Polo’s objects and gestures got replaced by words, the conversations turned less happy and less engaging. So, Polo went back to his gestures, immersing himself in the thought of how life would be in these cities.
As time passed, the great Kublai Khan and Marco Polo choreographed a mute commentary of rhythmic hand movements in silence and stillness following the receipt of the fundamental information of the city. On one side, the vocabulary evolved with renewed objects from more cities, and on the other, the mute concert became more closed and stable.
As Marco Polo’s memoirs of cities progress, the great Kublai Khan presumes the role of scriptwriter. He dismantles the cities and reconstructs them as he likes. He interrupts Marco Polo to describe an unimaginable city — to which Polo says that although he had narrated this city to the great Khan himself, not every city that can be imagined exists. For cities are like dreams. However unexpected the dream is, it still stems from a desire or fear. And every city’s elements are therefore assembled via a connecting thread, an inner rule, a perspective and a discourse — although at times the connection or discourse seems hidden or even absurd, they still build on them.
Kublai Khan declares that his dreams are composed by his mind or by chance, and not by desires or fears. To this Marco Polo asserts that cities too believe the same. But it’s not the city’s wonders that delighted the Khan, but the answers the city gave to his questions, or sometimes the question city posed, forcing him to answer.
Zobeide is the white city, fully exposed to moon with streets as puzzling as a maze. Years ago, men across many countries saw the same dream — a dream of a naked woman moving about the streets, vanishing mysteriously. In a hope to live this dream, they build a city, but modify the arches and stairways to trap the woman. But to this day, they never saw the woman again, in their sleep or awake. In fact, the men who built the city have now forgotten the woman and the dream.
New men who saw the same dream come upon the city and make more changes, to trap their desire — the naked woman. But they all fail ultimately. And in doing so, they all turned the city an big ugly trap.
Isn’t this the harsh reality of possessiveness. The more we want to control what we love, trap them, manipulate them, the more liberated and free they become inherently. And in the end, it’s only the notion of having a hold of what you so dearly want to possess, while the possession was never really yours.
Hypatia is a paradox. Hypatia counteracts everything that our minds are trained to believe and process through centuries. Long before the human species developed languages, they relied on signs. Signs that were passed to us — and we forgot to ask the premise of why a given sign signified a particular thing. But, as a traveler arrives at Hypatia, his knowledge of signs (and language) fails him. Where he looks for beauty, he finds death and disgust and where he seeks royalty, he discovers convicts. In Hypatia, philosophers are found in playgrounds, adolescents in library and beautiful, forthcoming women at the stables. The cemeteries of Hypatia echoed music. The philosopher informs Marco Polo that signs form language of Hypatia — but not the one he knows. He has to unlearn and relearn everything here.
And when Marco Polo is ready to leave such unparalleled stimulation, he climbs atop the citadel’s highest point, with a hope that a ship would go by one day. But does it ever? Is this language also ultimately deceit?
Hypatia (named after the philosopher of Alexandria) brings to light the question of accepting a stipulated framework, a set pedagogy and the traditional nomenclature. In many ways, we all need to discover our own Hypatia, where paradoxes are normal and contradiction is the norm of the day.
Armilla, a thin city paints a picture of an incomplete city — but the city is incomplete by choice — not by destruction or enchantment. The city is a forest of pipes that end in taps, showers, spouts, overflows, and a series of lavabo, bathtubs and some or the other porcelain. One gets an impression that either the city was abandoned by the time the plumbers did their job or the city’s water systems were the only thing that survived a catastrophe.
In either case, the city is inhabited by scores of young women. Marco Polo thinks that the nymphs and naiads (spirits in form of young women that live in water such as rivers, springs or waterfall), who have travelled across the aquatic ecosystem to reach Armilla. Polo assumes that either their arrival led the humans away or the humans built this city as an offering (to the nymphs and naiads) who were offended by the misuse of waters (by humans). But here these maidens are content, one can hear them singing in mornings.
Incomplete, destroyed or abandoned — the ways of nature cannot be conjectured unless one understands the conjunction of the living and non-living components, and their interdependence. Maybe it’s time we learn that from Armilla, that nature shall always find her way; we (humans) have a very short passage in this realm that we call Mother Earth.
Chloe is a trading city where the exchange is not merchandise, but fantasies. People pass by each other or gather while taking shelter from rain, shopping or attending music concerts, but instead of exchanging pleasantries they weave imaginary meetings and seductions. All kinds of people come by at the city square and they all orchestrate a virtual trade of daydreams and reverie — never extending a glance for over a moment or displaying even the slightest of emotions.
It feels like a robotic army with an insatiable appetite for physical transactions move about Chloe — this army doesn’t never pops the make-believe bubble to enter the realm of reality. Marco Polo feels that if the people of Chloe were to engage with reality, everything will come to a stop and the city will become a purist expression.
Valdrada, the first city to be grouped under City & Eyes, is a city of visual asymmetry. The city is built on the edge of a lake, featuring a balcony with parapets overlooking the water in every house. In fact, every part of the house — including the floors and ceilings — and every action of city’s residents — from passion to crime — reflected in the water. Essentially, everything repeated twice, once in the city of Valdrada and once in her reflection. But this inversion and repetition is not synced. Things bear different value (some more, some less) in the real and inverted worlds. Every face, every gesture and its inverted avatar lived for each other, but without any love between them.
Valdrada is like the silent neighborhood watch that makes you watch your own actions, by exactly repeating them. While watching it happen as a spectator (as against being the subject previously) — does it stir a different emotion? And is this the reason that makes the inversion enhance or diminish the value — fundamentally because the subject holds their actions in high or low regard, sometimes proud and other times ashamed? Can we become our own vigilante and be aware and accountable of all our actions?
Pooja and Tarun, the collaborating authors, are both urban planners and city enthusiasts. This blog is about their metaphysical and emotional interpretations of the Invisible Cities. All the illustrations are created by the authors, please acknowledge duly.
